Food bloggers, travel enthusiasts, fashionistas, gamers, photographers, designers, you name it, a personal website is a fantastic way to share your knowledge and expertness with the world. Or maybe you are launching a special event which you want to share with your close ones or impress the employer with an online resume. Bear in mind, the latter actually gives you a higher chance of landing the job you always wanted to have.
Factors that impact overall performance and speed are the allocated CPU resources and memory each account gets, how many websites a host allows per server, how their server stack looks with regards to PHP (PHP 7+ is a must these days), server-side caching, and more (have a look at our SiteGround vs HostGator comparison for an example of how much loading times can differ when you have a proper server config). The terminology might be a bit too technical, but the main things to look for would be CPU and memory resource allocation + allowed domains per server.

What is fantastic about Cloudways is that their services are very flexible and scalable. You pick the desired infrastructure, like Amazon, Google or DigitalOcean, and start from there. Depending on which you decide to go with, the location of the servers may vary. There are more than 25 global data centers, what ensures Cloudways to have servers the closest to your audience. Without giving it a second thought, these guys give you a full solution for your website and their cloud-based hosting is a great alternative to a VPS.

As longtime website owners and hosting nerds, we've been asked often: "Which web host is your personal favorite?" We recently decided to take this question seriously — exhaustively testing accounts with all the best web hosting services to analyze their uptime, features, pricing, support, and more. So who do we believe offers the best web hosting? See below for our top reviews of 2020, conveniently broken out by category:

With more than 8 million domains under their wing, HostGator is ideal for a personal website. Every hosting package has a 99.9% uptime guarantee and allows you a refund within 45 days. Every step you make towards a successful launch of your page, you always have HostGator’s support at your service. It will come especially hand if you are new in the business and are setting up your very first page. Even if you have little or zero prior experience, prepare to surprise yourself by how much you can accomplish on your own.

If you’re a startup or a small- to medium-sized business, iPage offers low-cost options that are great for small or growing companies on a budget. With your free domain name registration, you get hosting for unlimited domains and emails, plus $150 in free advertising credits, should you need to market a new website as well. The host’s email tools include webmail, autoresponders, email forwarding, and security features like SPAM filters and virus protection.
In case you still need to decide what would fit best for you, Bluehost’s support is ready to take care of you and guide you towards successfully launching your website. Moreover, with their help, you will get the most out of the package you will pick. Advisable would be to go with the cheapest option which would be more than enough for small and new pages.
Complete Internet Solutions is not like that. The price they quote is your locked-in price. In addition, they offer a free twelve months on top of your term. So, if you sign up for two years at $3.95 a month, you pay $94.80 for the two years, and then pay nothing for another year. If you choose to renew at the end of those three years, you can repeat that pricing program without a fee increase. This is how it should be done.

Looking for data centers in Canada to cater to the country’s audience? Cirrus Hosting employs 3 data centers in Toronto area. Although they have data centers in Canada, they do not employ a lot of features for increased website speed. PHP 7 is supported which means faster loading speeds for your website compared to PHP 5.6. Cloudflare CDN, LiteSpeed servers, and other caching features are not included in their shared hosting packages.

If you're planning on selling a product, look for a web host that offers a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate, because it encrypts the data between the customer's browser and web host to safeguard purchasing information. You're probably familiar with SSL; it's the green padlock that appears in your web browser's address bar as you visit an online financial institution or retail outlet. A few companies toss in a SSL certificate free of charge; others may charge you roughly $100 per year for that extra security layer.
In this day and age, you don’t have to be a 5-star designer or experienced developer to have a website. That’s why man invented website builders — the time-saving, headache-free, web-design-for-dummies alternative to complex coding. You can point and click to add elements like photos or videos, type content into a visual editor, click one more button, and watch as it all magically appears live on the Internet. Seriously, these tools are brilliant, and it gets better:

Dreamhost has a really good reputation, and with good reason. All the hosting products are solid, their support on point, and their server nice and speedy. They also don’t outsource support which is always a big win in our book. Ease of use is another thing Dreamhost is known for, as they’ve custom built a control panel for their customers… it’s very user-friendly.

Shared hosting with Hostwinds has unlimited bandwidth and disk space. And this goes for all three of their packages, Basic, Advanced and Ultimate. That is why they are naming it Shared Unlimited Web Hosting. What all three plans offer is also a free dedicated IP address which not all hosting companies do. At least not in every plan they have in their portfolio. Hostwinds is definitely very unique in this regard. But there are other things they excel at, too. Like for example, the speed they offer you is lightning fast and support team amiable and trustworthy. Their tech support is at your service throughout the entire day.

Finally, we were quite happy with their money-back guarantee. They offer a full 90-day guarantee (except for domain names you buy) and a pro-rated refund for the rest of your time. So if you want to cancel after 18 months and have six months left in your term, you'll get back the cost of the six remaining months. It's clear, it's understandable, and it's the straightforward way we'd like to see most providers use as a model.

If unlimited domains, email, and storage light up your board, iPage is your best bet. As you’re setting up your custom email address at your new (free) domain, you can take advantage of email forwarding tools, autoresponders, SPAM filtering, and virus protection. Therefore, iPage’s service is our top pick for unlimited resources and irreplaceable value in an email host.
Serving more than 15 million members, Bravenet provides a full-service hosting option for people looking for the complete package. In addition to a drag-and-drop site builder and unlimited storage, the Canadian company is one of the only free web hosters with an email marketing platform. Customers can also enjoy community-building features such as message boards, mailing lists, blogs, contact forms, polls, and other tools.

This is one of our all-time favourite US-based hosting companies, they have powerful servers around the world (though none in Canada), and top-notch support. SiteGround is one of the fastest growing hosts around, and with good reason! Their focus on security, support, and ease of use is pretty impressive. They even developed in-house security systems to continually monitor and act on potential security issues.

If you require a lot of functionality and versatility from your website, you’ll benefit from programs and applications that can help you build your site. Our Web hosting plans give you access to free, server-side applications that can be used to develop and customize your website, including popular Content Management System (CMS) applications like WordPress® and Joomla!®. You can even add a Dedicated IP if you plan to add an SSL Certificate later.
What this decision involves is choosing between the different (cheap) web hosting companies & hosting types available for hosting a site in Canada. There are many different hosting packages floating around for you to choose from, but to make a choice that is best going to benefit you, your website (whether it’s a blog, e-commerce site, or general business site), and its users, you’re going to need to understand the differences between the different types of hosting you might encounter during your search. To help you in that epic quest, we’ve listed the different hosting types below, and which features you should look out for.